


Sham Prince

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 10:03:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4662540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for a prompt on tumblr. Shougo embarrasses himself for Ryouta. Ryouta doesn't even notice (or buy him a latte).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sham Prince

When work fucking sucks as much as it has today and he’s a half-hour’s train ride away from home, Shougo’s choices aren’t plentiful and he needs some sort of pick-me-up if he doesn’t want to fall asleep on the train or go home and take a nap and fuck up his sleep schedule and end up ordering delivery for dinner for the third time this week because he’s too tired to cook and Ryouta refuses to just have leftovers (and Shougo will be too tired to argue on this issue, especially when Ryouta dangles his favorite menu in his face) and so even though he’d already blown 700 yen on a latte this morning he steps into Starbucks for a second time.

The smell of coffee hits him as if there’s a fan blowing it in his face (he checks the area straight in front of him, but there’s nothing). And then he hears a familiar laugh and tries not to whip his head around—but it is Ryouta, latte in his hand, talking to his agent (Shougo’s met her once and didn’t like her, but no matter—he despises pretty much everyone who’s involved with overworking Ryouta and making him worry too much about his skin and his weight). He could go up to Ryouta and hug him around the waist, poke him and make him squawk like a little goose—but that would be too easy. And his mind flickers back to the conversation they’d had a few weeks ago when they’d both had too much to drink and were clumsily trying to undress each other with little success, when Ryouta had been surprisingly sincere and sweet (or at least, Drunk Shougo had thought he’d been) and had expressed his desire to act like a prince for Shougo more. At the time Shougo had laughed and said a few half-formed words that had probably made no sense about how he didn’t want to play damsel in distress, but, well. He hadn’t envisioned being half-dead in his exhaustion, and if Ryouta has a chance to save him he might buy him a latte or something, which is way more fun than asking him to buy anything would be.

Ryouta’s not going to be overly sympathetic just at Shougo’s appearance, though; he’s more likely to make fun of Shougo—and, okay, if Shougo pretends to trip, he might laugh, too, but he’s still more likely to buy him a drink and call him clumsy in a semi-affectionate way, so all things considered it’s the best Shougo’s got and he can’t keep standing in the entrance forever. So he strolls up to the register, hooks his foot around the last stanchion and pitches forward.

He catches himself on his hands and knees and winces; it actually fucking hurts, especially with his body so sore after working all week (this fucking latte had better be worth it).

“Are you all right, sir?”

He looks up. It’s the barista, adjusting his hat and smiling nervously. Shougo glances over to Ryouta’s table—Ryouta is still looking at his agent and nodding (either he didn’t see Shougo trip or he’s pretending not to for some reason). Shougo scowls.

“Yeah, fine.”

He picks himself up, brushes off the knees of his pants (thankfully they didn’t tear on the floor) and leans on the counter. Even the barista’s apparently not going to give him a discount for the embarrassment, so he orders and pays the damn full price for four shots.

He passes right by Ryouta’s seat with his drink; Ryouta still ignores him—fuck that. Shougo’s not going to come up to him now. There’s a free seat by the door, and he could be going home and cooking—but he’d rather wait for Ryouta and turn the tables on him while he has the chance. And he doesn’t have to wait that long; Ryouta’s agent probably has better things to do (although she stays at their table, looking at her phone) and it’s getting late (near enough time for Ryouta to be coming home and asking about dinner as usual, at any rate) and so they get up and wander toward the door. And Shougo sticks his leg out.

Ryouta’s not looking for it and can’t sidestep; by the time he sees it he’s halfway to the ground. He swears halfway under his breath (and it sounds pretty damn good; he should let himself do that in public more often) and sits up to glare at Shougo.

“Shougo-kun? Did you just trip me?”

Shougo snorts. “Way to be self-important, asshole. You got in the way of my leg. But since I’m nice, I’ll help you up.”

He holds out a hand. Ryouta looks at it warily.

“Even though you didn’t fucking help me when I tripped, Mr. I-want-to-be-a-prince.”

Ryouta blinks. “You tripped?”

Shougo rolls his eyes. “Yeah. You said you wanted to act like a prince—”

“Aww, Shougo,” says Ryouta, and—is he laughing?

“Fuck you,” says Shougo.

Ryouta picks himself up. “You remembered that I said that?”

“Course I did,” says Shougo. “Not everyone’s as ditzy as you are.”

Ryouta smiles and pats Shougo’s head.

“What am I, your dog?”

“You’re so cute when you want attention, Shougo-kun. Except when you trip me. That wasn’t nice.”

“Not noticing me wasn’t nice,” Shougo mutters.

“Did you have a hard day at work?” Ryouta croons, stroking his hair and then his ears—fuck, that should be illegal in public.

Shougo hums and closes his eyes. It feels nice, like this—even if he’d had to pay for his drink and even if Ryouta’s being kind of patronizing right now. If that’s what he thinks being the knight in shining armor is like, whatever. Shougo might as well let him have it. And Ryouta’s fingers are so nice, so nimble against his skin—he leans in and opens his eyes when his head hits the table. Ryouta laughs again, and Shougo glares.

“Can we go home?”

“Okay,” says Ryouta.

He takes Shougo’s hand, only dropping it to hold the door for him. And, okay, it’s nice being treated this way—but next time he’s not going to trip over himself trying to get it.


End file.
